Tori Rains-Wedan, 15-year-old son Mason Wedan on her right, and 11-year-old twins Austin and Hunter.

Pilot Oliver Frascona, his girlfriend and her three children were identified Monday as the victims in the Erie plane crash that killed all on board.

Frascona, a prominent Erie real estate lawyer, was flying with 41-year-old Tori Rains-Wedan and her three children, according to the Weld County Coroner. Her children were 15-year-old Mason Wedan and 11-year-old twin brothers, Austin and Hunter. A dog also died in the crash.

Rains-Wedan was the owner of Educated Minds, which provides continuing education classes for real estate brokers. Mason attended Broomfield High School, while his brothers attended Broomfield's Birch Elementary last school year and started at Erie Middle School this year, according to Boulder Valley School District spokesman Briggs Gamblin.

Gamblin said grief counselors would be available Tuesday for students and staff members at Broomfield High, Birch Elementary, Aspen Creek K-8 and Broomfield Heights Middle. The boys played sports and had friends at all those schools, he said.

Frascona lived close to the runway at the Erie Municipal Airport in the town's Air Park neighborhood. Neighbor and pilot Tom Van Lone, a Realtor and former Erie mayor, said Frascona moved in about a year-and-a-half ago and was an avid, experienced pilot.

“He was a really nice guy and a good pilot with a lot of training hours,” Van Lone said. “He flew a couple of times a week.”

Van Lone said Frascona loved to share real estate stories and often talked shop with him.

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He described him as “full of energy” and called the loss of everyone on board “truly tragic.”

The single-engine plane, on a return flight from the Centennial Airport, crashed in a field a short distance from the Erie runway while coming in for a landing at about 11:50 a.m. Sunday, officials said. The six-passenger plane, a Piper PA-46, is registered to Frascona's Real Estate School LLC.

Two of the passengers on the plane were taken to area hospitals after the crash, including one who was flown by a medical helicopter based at the airport, according to Erie police.

Frascona was a partner in the well-established Boulder firm of Frascona, Joiner, Goodman and Greenstein P.C. He trained hundreds of real estate brokers in the Denver metro area on real estate law, colleagues said.

Chris Mygatt, president of Coldwell Banker Colorado, said he first met Frascona in the 1980s when he was managing Boulder's Fowler Real Estate and Frascona was a contract trainer for the company.

Both pilots, he said, they struck up a friendship, flew together and continued to work together when he moved to Coldwell.

Investigators on Monday work at the scene where five people were killed after the single-engine plane they were flying in crashed at the Erie Municipal Airport on Sunday. For more photos and video from the scene, go to www.dailycamera.com. (Paul Aiken / Daily Camera)

“He was as close as our industry would ever get to a celebrity in the business,” he said. “He was larger than life. He was an excellent presenter. He made our annual classes vibrant and real and relevant. He was very generous with his time and always available to answer questions.”

But he said Frascona's real passion was airplanes, first flying in the Navy and then as a hobby. Frascona bought the Piper PA-46 this spring, he said, and it was a plane “he wanted for a long time.”

“His loss leaves a huge void in the real estate community and the flying community,” he said.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash and expected to have the wreckage removed Sunday and taken to a nearby hangar for closer examination. A final determination on what went wrong could take as long as a year.

Jan Culver said she was with a friend in a pasture near the airport when she heard the sound of a plane and looked up to see one flying “really, really low.”

“We heard it sputtering,” she said. “Then there was no sound. We knew it was a crash.”

She said she saw a small cloud of dust as the plane crashed and, because she has some medical knowledge, went to the scene to help. She found the plane upside down and what looked like “bad injuries.”

She said she didn't have the right equipment to help the victims, but “you should always try.”

Michael Maya Charles, a retired commercial airline pilot and one of Frascona's neighbors, said the NTSB's investigators will gather data on everything from the pilot's training history to the plane's maintenance records to how the plane's engine performed.

He and other pilots in the neighborhood said there's always speculation after a crash, but they're waiting for the NTSB's determination — and use that information to help them mitigate the risks of flying.

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